bayonet

I have an Audigy 2 card in my XPS Gen3 system (which has been great for a long time), but is now giving me some trouble.

I am experiencing no sound or broken sound issues with a few of the newer game titles (Supreme Commander and the C&C3 Demo), and have spent many hours looking for fixes - even trying a new Audigy 4 card for good measure. All to no benefit. I have upgraded the drivers from Creative's download site.

The only thing I cannot figure out (and might be causing my problems) is that in DxDiag the card is reported as emulated. The relevant snips from my DxDiag report are at the bottom of this post.

I can see the sound card drivers are correct in Device Manager, but they are blank in the DxDiag report.

I read somewhere that entering the BIOS might provide some options, but when I looked at mine, there were no options to do with IRQ's or on-board sound. I don't think my system has onboard sound, the only other device reported is a modem and there are no outlets where I would expect onboard sound to be.

Can any kind person/people suggest anything to fix this emulated problem? I cannot be certain that this will remedy my problem with the games, but it seems odd that my card decided to get all emulated sometime in the past few weeks, so I'm hopeful.

My system specs:
Intel P4HT 3.4Ghz
2GB DDR2 RAM
ATI X800XT Video Card 256MB
Sound Blaster Audigy 2

In hope of a solution.....
DB


-------------
Sound Devices
-------------
Description: SB Audigy 2 Audio [CCC0] (emulated)
Default Sound Playback: Yes
Default Voice Playback: Yes
Hardware ID: PCI\VEN_1102&DEV_0004&SUBSYS_10031102&REV_04
Manufacturer ID: 1
Product ID: 100
Type: Emulated
Driver Name:
Driver Version:
Driver Attributes:
WHQL Logo'd:
Date and Size:
Other Files:
Driver Provider: Creative
HW Accel Level: Emulation Only
Cap Flags: 0x2F
Min/Max Sample Rate: 100, 100000
Static/Strm HW Mix Bufs: 0, 0
Static/Strm HW 3D Bufs: 0, 0
HW Memory: 0
Voice Management: No
EAX(tm) 2.0 Listen/Src: No, No
I3DL2(tm) Listen/Src: No, No
Sensaura(tm) ZoomFX(tm): No
Registry: OK
Sound Test Result: Not run

---------------------
Sound Capture Devices
---------------------
Description: SB Audigy 2 Audio [CCC0]
Default Sound Capture: Yes
Default Voice Capture: Yes
Driver Name: ctaud2k.sys
Driver Version: 5.12.0001.1196 (English)
Driver Attributes: Final Retail
Date and Size: 8/11/2006 14:45:38, 499584 bytes
Cap Flags: 0x1
Format Flags: 0xFFF
Description: Modem #1 Line Record (emulated)
Default Sound Capture: No
Default Voice Capture: No
Driver Name:
Driver Version:
Driver Attributes:
Date and Size:
Cap Flags: 0x20
Format Flags: 0x0

-----------
DirectMusic
-----------
DLS Path: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\drivers\GM.DLS
DLS Version: 1.00.0016.0002
Acceleration: Enabled
Ports: SB Audigy 2 DirectMusic Synthesizer [CCC0], Hardware (Kernel Mode), Output, DLS, Internal, Default Port
SB Audigy 2 Audio [CCC0], Software (Kernel Mode), Output, DLS, Internal
Microsoft MIDI Mapper [Emulated], Hardware (Not Kernel Mode), Output, No DLS, Internal
SB Audigy 2 Synth B [CCC0] [Emulated], Hardware (Not Kernel Mode), Output, No DLS, Internal
SB Audigy 2 Sw Synth [CCC0] [Emulated], Hardware (Not Kernel Mode), Output, No DLS, Internal
SB Audigy 2 Synth A [CCC0] [Emulated], Hardware (Not Kernel Mode), Output, No DLS, Internal
Microsoft GS Wavetable SW Synth [Emulated], Hardware (Not Kernel Mode), Output, No DLS, Internal
Microsoft Synthesizer, Software (Not Kernel Mode), Output, DLS, Internal
Registry: OK
Test Result: Not run

smz

I've heard of a software emulation tool that takes an audigy 2 and emulates an audigy 4 but I doubt you have anything to do with that tool. I will look up your driver specs as posted and get back to you with the current creative versions to see if you are at least up to date. If you run dxdiag from the run command, you can get your directx info. I'm not sure if that was asked or not. You had a pretty long post. I'll get back to you on this if someone doesn't beat me to it.

bayonet

Thx for the reply.

I copied a few more snips from my DxDiag, I hope this includes the part about DirectX you mentioned, if not I'm happy to provide whatever is needed (if I can find it).

I should note that in my original post the DxDiag shows HW Acceleration as None: Emulation Only. I have tried the slider setting on every acceleration level, all give the same issue. It just happened that the DxDiag report I posted had the slider set to the lowest limit.


------------------
System Information
------------------
Time of this report: 3/22/2007, 20:25:31
Machine name: PAULDELL
Operating System: Windows XP Home Edition (5.1, Build 2600) Service Pack 2 (2600.xpsp_sp2_gdr.061219-0316)
Language: English (Regional Setting: English)
System Manufacturer: Dell Inc.
System Model: Dimension XPS
BIOS: Phoenix ROM BIOS PLUS Version 1.10 A07
Processor: Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 3.40GHz (2 CPUs)
Memory: 2046MB RAM
Page File: 574MB used, 3367MB available
Windows Dir: C:\WINDOWS
DirectX Version: DirectX 9.0c (4.09.0000.0904)
DX Setup Parameters: Not found
DxDiag Version: 5.03.2600.2180 32bit Unicode
------------
DxDiag Notes
------------
DirectX Files Tab: No problems found.
Display Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 1: No problems found.
Sound Tab 2: No problems found.
Sound Tab 3: No problems found.
Music Tab: No problems found.
Input Tab: No problems found.
Network Tab: No problems found.

--------------------
DirectX Debug Levels
--------------------
Direct3D: 0/4 (n/a)
DirectDraw: 0/4 (retail)
DirectInput: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectMusic: 0/5 (n/a)
DirectPlay: 0/9 (retail)
DirectSound: 0/5 (retail)
DirectShow: 0/6 (retail)

smz

OK, I have a few things here:

Looking up the exact specs for the XPS Gen3 Dell system shows this information regarding the sound:

Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (D) Card w/Dolby 5.1 (digital output), and IEEE 1394 (firewire port).

based on that, I went to creative labs and looked up the latest driver. The last release of the driver was Oct 2006 which coincides with your August 2006 driver. Did you download the creative labs driver based on the Audigy 2 ZS? They list several versions of the Audigy 2. I have also read on a couple forums that a beta driver maybe floating around. This may be just for vista though.

I found a ton of hits on a forum specifically for creative cards only. I did a search for Dell XPS and too many hits came up to read:
http://forums.creative.com/creativel...rue&q=dell+xps

Now the dell version of the driver specifically made for XPS Gen 3 is dated 2005. Did you ever install an updated dell driver or go right the creative page? For kicks, you could always uninstall the creative chipset driver and install the last dell release:
http://support.dell.com/support/down...&fileid=119882

Last but not least, Dell has a forum as well. I pinpointed it down to the section that covers XPS Desktops under the audio category:
http://www.dellcommunity.com/support...xps_desk_audio

I did quite a bit of research on this, but since I know getting help from dell support is like pulling teeth, there are quite a few options to play with in my post.

Let us know you findings. Sorry for all the series of links and suggestions, but I thought I could cover a lot of ground in one post.

Knowing this information, according to your directx log and the driver information about it's version number on creative, they don't seem to match though directx may be giving driver information on specific driver files and not the release itself. Being this is an OEM card from Dell, their software driver may include some variances that the creative chipset driver doesn't have. First things first. I have the download link for Creative's Software. Note: this audigy has a TON of downloads in addition to the base driver. So large, you need to see it for yourself. I even saw plugins for decoding. This may be a very good find for you.

But just so we play it fair, let's look at dell.

bayonet

SMZ,
Wow! Thanks for your work and the links. The current drivers I have came from Creative, I used an autoupdate tool I found on their site and installed everything it recommended. I physically removed the card to check the type - it is an Audigy 2, but, what you say about it being an OEM card makes sense, so off to the Dell site I shall go to see what happens.

Just for information - when I was looking for solutions earlier this week it appears that at some point Creative made a single driver set for most Audigy cards (not the SE version) - when I compared the driver numbers for the 2, the ZS and the Pro they all looked to be the same. That might be right, or I could be misinterpreting the way the company names drivers.

Anyway, I will now go play with all the links you provided and will report back here on the results. I have to work pretty slowly as I am skittich about playing with these things, so it might be a few hours...

Thanks again for your efforts.

bayonet

OK, it is fixed!

In the end it wasn't a driver issue at all. I tried all the recommended options, but nothing stopped DirectX reporting the card being emulated.

Eventually I stumbled onto a thread in the Creative forums that suggested checking the Run>Services.msc to check the Windows Audio was set to Automatic. Mine was, but I checked the Dependencies and one (Remote Call?) was set to Manual. I switched its Status to Automatic, and PRESTO! suddenly DirectX recognized all the drivers and the Emulated status was history.

Thanks for your help, it really is appreciated!

smz

Glad I could help. Things are a bit more complex when you deal with something that is OEM and has a large presence of support on both the retail and oem side. Glad that one of my provided links helped you solve this oddball issue.

Take Care.